tell me what you feel (is it real is it real)
by EmAndFandems
Summary: Months after the 2019 Armageddon't, Crowley and Aziraphale are back to their usual routines. That includes desperately trying to avoid recognizing their feelings. But what happens on one special occasion changes things, maybe forever.


There's a million things between them. Not one of those things could be guessed by the average human, not if they were given six thousand years to guess.

That they've both taken forms which humans perceive as "male" is none of their concern: that has more to do with convenience within the society set up in this area of the world, and what they can do in that framework, than with any preformed notions of their own genders. Angels' true forms have no differentiation among one another sexually; demons, having been angels once, are the same, except that in human form their bits tend to get rather more use than the Other Side's.

No, the legality in human terms of whatever's trying to happen here isn't the problem, has never been the problem. When Crowley feels the urge crowding inside his mind, pushing him to lean in just a bit further when he's got Zira up against a wall making threats, he isn't stopped by the thought of pedestrians. When Aziraphale feels that peculiar flicker inside while watching Crowley glower at just about everyone, it's not the idea that they might be seen holding him back-or at least, not the idea of being seen by mortal beings.

And there's the crux of the issue, isn't it. Because if they could be sure, really truly definitely sure, that no one Up or Down there would know, how different could things be? Would they be? Or are they both too reluctant to admit that it's just them? It's been months since the Doomsday That Didn't, and everything is back to normal.

Crowley, on those rare occasions when even he lies awake at night, finds himself plagued by thoughts of Aziraphale, smiling at him and beaming at the world, sometimes literally, wings slipping from beneath the illusion or the veil or whatever it is that keeps them in proper shape, and he can never tell if Zira glows that brightly to everyone else, too.

Aziraphale has long since given up on the archaic practice of sleep, preferring to spend the long nighttime hours in front of his books, but every now and then his gaze will remain fixed on one spot for longer than natural as his thoughts spin away from novels and Bibles towards a certain snake whose hissing and snapping have somehow become endearing rather than dangerous.

The Arrangement in its various stages has gone on nearly six millennia, give or take a bit. There is no cause to go changing it now. Only…

Only, it has changed, hasn't it? Sort of on its own, perhaps with a bit of nudging here and there, until it doesn't _quite_ resemble what it was originally. Aziraphale, for instance, doesn't recall covering temptations for Crowley before, hmm, it must have been the 17th century or so, which is quite recent if you think about it. And Crowley is fairly certain he didn't use to miracle half as many things as he is apt to miracle now. Somehow, over the years, things have gotten kind of muddled.

But this is a different muddled altogether. This is muddledness the likes of which has never been seen before. This, whatever it might be labelled, is the sudden desire to break every rule and know your enemy in every way possible.

Sudden? Aziraphale turns the word over in his mind, wondering if that can be right. Has this been sudden? It doesn't seem so; no, this was more of a slow creeping onset than an abrupt wave. There was no individual morning when he woke up with an unprecedented desire to snog Crowley senseless, no first time where the sight of that skinny frame strolling towards him made him feel like flying with his feet on the Earth. It was a simple matter of not remembering when he hadn't felt that way. There was no suddenness, only a gentle realization that perhaps it had always been this way. Puzzling this out takes Aziraphale the better part of a week, and by the time he's roused himself back into the present he finds he's late to meet Crowley at the duck pond by several hours.

Crowley spends those hours peering into the water and attempting to convince himself that he's not hurt by this standing-up. He's distracting himself from pretending that the absence of tartan and oversized scarves isn't worrying him a bit by viciously glaring at a duck, half-ready to start hissing and never mind the onlookers, when vertigo seizes his chest and he knows what that means.

"Hullo," he says without turning round.

He's been able to tell when Zira's nearby ever since he identified that sensation. It's falling, something he should be intimately familiar with, and he's reminded of it every time the angel stands too close to Crowley and makes his stomach swoop crazily. Funny thing, the human body. You wouldn't suppose the organs were capable of such wild movements.

Aziraphale adjusts the sleeves of his coat. "Yes, well, hello," he says, and he could kick himself for how flustered he has already gotten from a single glimpse of Crowley. From a glance at the jawline that's set so tightly after several hours of waiting. From that second just between when the sunglasses start to slide down Crowley's nose and when he shoves them back up irritably, when the yellow-gold of his eyes is almost visible and it's almost possible to remember that he's a demon, that they aren't supposed to be talking to one another, that they are in fact on opposite sides and there can never be anything else. Aziraphale clings to those moments, those slivered fragments of time, because some days they are the only thing keeping him at a safe distance from the Serpent of Eden.

Said serpent is staring Zira down now, debating asking, and before he's consciously made any decision the question slips past his not-at-all-pointy teeth that took so long to get used to. "Where were you?"

And he hates himself for it immediately, because it's so raw with neediness, so utterly pathetic, but Crowley has hated himself long before this and what's one more drop in this particular ocean? Still, he can't make himself keep looking at Aziraphale anymore, not with shame burning his insides like holy water. He busies himself with scaring ducks again. If Zira notices a redness to his cheeks it will be put down to anger, not humiliation; a reputation for heartlessness, if nothing else, means heartbreak does not cross other people's minds when they wonder why you're upset. If they do. If Zira cares.

Aziraphale's mental power is not actually limited to the slab of gray stuff inside the skull he's using, but he could swear he feels a neuron explode with the effort to come up with an acceptable answer to that question. After what was probably only a second or two, he grimaces and says, "Sorry, dear, I got held up at work."

Crowley squints at him. Aziraphale isn't sure how he can tell, seeing as the glasses ought to be blocking the necessary view, but apparently after 6000 years the creases of the demon's face are as familiar to him as his own. "You're self-employed and you hate customers."

Aziraphale shrugs and fidgets with his sleeves some more, tucking his hands into his pockets before changing his mind mid-sentence and just folding his arms in front of him. "Well. You see. I was, um, reading, and then I rather lost track of time, I'm afraid. Terribly sorry to keep you waiting. So good of you to wait-"

Crowley seizes the scarf around the angel's neck and drags him in close. "What have I told you," he says, teeth gritted and nostrils flaring, "about using words like… _that _to describe me?"

It is very hard, when your forehead is approximately five centimeters away from another person's forehead, to look the other person in the eye, especially if the other person in question is wearing sunglasses specifically designed to keep you from doing just that. Still, Aziraphale makes a valiant, even heroic effort. It is only the knowledge that _his_ eyes have no such barrier, and if he gives in and looks at Crowley's mouth then the demon will definitely notice, which saves him from doing anything foolish.

Crowley sees a muscle twitch in the other's clenched jaw and it serves as a reminder that he's overstepping here. The angel might not be overly inclined to smiting, and he likes to think Zira's fond of him, but it's probably best not to push. Best to avoid a scene. He drops the scarf and makes a show of wiping his hands on his trousers, avoiding Aziraphale's steady gaze.

"Sorry, anyway," says Aziraphale in that placid tone. "What did you need to speak to me about?"

Aziraphale isn't watching Crowley very closely, or not more so than usual, but he can tell when the demon shifts back into his comfortable sneer. "I thought," says Crowley, disdainfully, "we might get lunch, but it seems you've done away with those plans."

The sun, dimmed behind a thick cloud layer as is expected in London, is no longer overhead; it hovers somewhere halfway between the city's skyline and the true horizon, casting long shadows along the path and throwing the world into an early, subtle darkness. Aziraphale rubs his hands together. "We could make a dinner of it?" he asks hopefully. "My treat, to make up for lunch."

Crowley's eyebrows lower over his sunglasses and his brow furrows. "Tell you what," he says. "Why don't we go back to your place and get absolutely plastered?"

Aziraphale isn't sure he can manage being drunk around Crowley right now, not with the way his stupid heart is still pounding from the proximity they were in a minute ago. But he can't think of a way to say no without risking offence, and the last thing he wants to do is set Crowley off again, so he agrees and off they go.

It's the most natural thing in the world for Crowley to offer his arm to Aziraphale as they walk, and it isn't until Zira takes him up on the offer and links their arms that Crowley even realizes he's done it. By then, of course, it is far too late to pull away, and he has to finish the walk arm-in-arm with the Guardian of the Eastern Gate like this isn't torture and treason rolled into a convenient package. If Hell catches him like this, Crowley reasons drily, they'd only need to hear his explanation of why he's in this situation to know how to punish him for such insubordination: make him take this walk again.

Aziraphale pushes the door to his bookshop open and, relieved, slips his arm free from Crowley's before he can forget himself and do something that can't be undone, like move his arm around Crowley's back, bring him in towards himself and- No, he's just going to step quickly away to fetch the wine. He disappears down the hallway and thanks God, his lucky stars, and everything he still believes in that he can no longer feel that arm against his. Except he can.

Crowley spills himself into a chair and buries his face in his hands. It's just Zira, it's just another night in, it's just alcohol. And he can always sober up before he says anything he can't take back, anyway. There's no reason this should be any different from the many times they've done this before. So they've stopped an Apocalypse, or they stood by while an Apocalypse diverted itself; in any case, the world has been spinning for 6024 years with no plan of stopping and everything is just as it was. Just as it always will be, if the past is any indication of the future. Nothing ever changes.

Aziraphale stares at his wine stash and wonders which has been drunk the fewest times. It doesn't matter, really, since it goes back in the bottle in the same state as it was before ingestion, but all the same there's something distasteful about reusing the same drink too many times. Perhaps it's another symptom of "going native," as his superiors say he's done, and who's to say they're wrong? Eventually, he selects a vintage at random and heads back into the room where Crowley waits at the table.

"Do you know what?" Aziraphale says abruptly, making Crowley sit up with a jerk. "I've had a thought."

"Careful, angel," says Crowley, reaching for the bottle, "don't hurt yourself there. S'dangerous, you know."

Aziraphale frowns for a moment, puzzled, before it dawns on him. "Hm, yes, dear, very funny. Anyway, do you know what day it is?"

Crowley has gotten his hands on the bottle and is fully prepared to start drinking from the neck of it until Aziraphale summons a glass and hands it to him. "No," he tells him, pouring the wine. "Mm, no glass for yourself. What, pray tell, is today?"

The second glass is forming in his hand as Aziraphale says slowly, "Well, it's the year 2020, isn't it. Or 6024, I suppose, if you want to-"

"Get on with it."

"Right. Ahem. It's just that… You know our little Arrangement. And it was… well, arranged, I suppose you might say, in 1020, wasn't it. So I was, er, thinking that perhaps if I were not mistaken this might be the, um, the same day we came to that… to that conclusion."

Aziraphale watches Crowley pour him some of the wine. "So what you're saying is," Crowley says as he gets to his feet, his own wine glass in hand and the liquid inside wobbling treacherously close to the edge, "it's been a thousand years of… of slacking off, _precisely_."

Crowley closes his eyes behind the sunglasses. A thousand years. An entire millennium of letting their guards down, of getting along well enough to trust one another to an extent that would be literally unthinkable to any of their respective co-workers. Quite the occasion, he supposes. A thousand years, well, isn't that something?

And in a thousand years, he hasn't… Well. There are rather a lot of things he hasn't done, aren't there? It's no concern of anyone's what some of those things might entail.

Crowley blinks and realizes that Zira has gone on talking. "...ation," is all he catches.

"Sorry, what was that? Just the last bit there," he adds hastily at the disapproving look. "Couldn't make it out, only a little."

"I said we ought to have some sort of celebration," Aziraphale repeats. Always so patient. "For the anniversary."

Why did he have to use that word? Aziraphale could smite himself on the spot. But Crowley's left eyebrow is curling peculiarly and his grin is emerging, as though he hasn't noticed anything strange about Aziraphale's breathlessness, so it seems he's gotten away with it. After all, people mark anniversaries of all sorts of things. He didn't have to mean anything… _untoward_ by it.

"To us!" Crowley shouts, taking a swig of wine before he visibly remembers to clink his glass first. He holds out the glass and waits for Aziraphale to extend his own for the proper ceremonial tap, then pulls it back and finishes the contents at once. Aziraphale tries desperately not to read into that _us_ any more than necessary, but he cannot deny that his heart is skipping a beat every time he replays it.

Crowley polishes off another three glasses of wine before conscious thought catches up. By now it is sluggish and boring, and he'd rather reach out an unsteady hand to smooth away a loose curl on Zira's forehead than listen to anything sensible he'd say to himself.

"Hey, angel," whispers Crowley, making Aziraphale's face flush. Which is silly, really, because why should that happen as a response to a… a perfectly logical thing to call him? He decides to blame the wine, although he's two glasses' worth behind the demon. "Angel. Psst."

"Hmm?"

Crowley blinks. "Hang on, I've forgotten." Something about Zira's wide eyes has driven all rational thought from his mind. "Stick around, it'll come to me, er…"

A pause. He leans back in his seat. "Nope, it's gone for g- for bad."

Aziraphale smiles and takes a sip of his wine. "They aren't listening anymore, you know, there's no need to keep up appearances."

In the split-second moment between speaking and setting his glass down after another quick swallow, Aziraphale becomes aware of a tenseness in Crowley. Something about the way he's holding himself in his seat provides an infinitesimal amount of warning before Crowley launches himself out of his chair.

Wine splashes out of Crowley's glass as he slams it down next to the other on the table between them before he shoves the entire table aside and grabs Zira's scarf for the second time that day, pulling the angel out of his seat. He shoves a bewildered Aziraphale backward until they are pressed against the bookshop's wall, slamming into the shelf with such force that Crowley watches Zira flick his eyes to the books so he can miracle any that have started to fall.

"Dear, what-?" Aziraphale starts to say, faintly. Because really, this is too much, expecting him to endure this twice in such rapid succession, and _what_ is Crowley playing at?

"Why don't you get it?" Crowley spits. "I'm not keeping up _appearances_, not putting on a _show_. This is who I _am_. I'm a demon, angel, and you of all people should understand what that means. I am not good! I am never _going_ to be good! I'm evil, foul, depraved, awf-"

It is a curious thing that happens next. Before either of them know what's happening, their lips are connecting and for a moment they're kissing and-

Aziraphale pushes Crowley away. Crowley stumbles backwards.

To understand what has just occurred, it becomes necessary to consider the thoughts which passed through the respective minds of each participant at that precise moment in time. It is impossible to tell how they ended up in that position, but each of them blames himself.

Aziraphale thinks he has pulled Crowley in closer. He panics, thinking he _should not have done that what was he thinking oh goodness_, and tries to undo it by pushing him. As if that could make it like it never happened. As if either of them could forget.

Crowley thinks he has leaned in closer to Aziraphale. He is pushed back and also panics. He has a single glance at the stunned look on Aziraphale's face, mirroring his own, and the next thing he knows he's shifted into a form he hasn't taken in centuries if not millennia. He slithers away quicker than he knows Aziraphale can chase him.

Aziraphale watches the snake flee and makes no attempt to follow. He presses a shaking hand to his mouth and wonders what in Heav- what just happened. "Oh dear," he whispers. "Oh, dear."

The appearance of an enormous serpent in the streets of London causes less of a stir than one might expect. Crowley is used to blending in, and it's only the tiniest demonic miracle to mask himself beneath a feeling in any onlookers that nothing is wrong. The people here are too polite by half in any case; it's absurdly simple to convince the locals to look the other way as he goes by. His humiliated escape goes unobserved.

Rejected. He's curled up in his flat, coiled around the leg of his favorite chair. Crowley can't bring himself to shift back, because if he has lips again he will never, ever be able to stop reliving that split second before his unnecessarily-beating heart was shattered. No, it's safer to stay like this. Alone and unattached. And what's 6000 years, really, in the grand scheme of things? Eternity's got more than that in store, surely. He'll get over it eventually.

_Who wants to live forever?_ wails a passing car outside his window, and he hisses scornfully. Some cosmic joke. A divine comedy. Maybe he'll sleep the rest of this century away. Or millennium.

Aziraphale has spent the last three hours completely unmoving, still standing beside the bookshelf with his hand over his mouth. He thinks, vaguely, that this will make time stop with him. The drying of the wine stains on the tablecloth belies this faulty logic. Twice the shop's doorbell has rung and twice he has ignored it.

Again he berates himself for the incredible stupidity it took to bring Crowley forwards that extra centimeter. He's ruined everything, now, and who knows if this is something fixable. At least a thousand years, maybe up to six thousand, thrown away. Their friendship is torn to shreds and it's his fault. All because he couldn't be satisfied with what they had.

"What a blasted fool I am," he mutters. Aziraphale shakes his head and slowly lowers his hand. Now what? He can't face Crowley, wouldn't know how to apologize for this. What could he say? How to explain? He paces the shop and tries to imagine it.

_Sorry for kissing you and surprising you so badly you ran away_, he'd say. _Sorry for ruining everything we've so carefully built over the centuries. Sorry for_\- It's no good, this is pointless. He could never say any of this and Crowley doesn't want to hear it anyway.

Absently, Aziraphale miracles the spill out of the fabric of the tablecloth as he ponders his next move. Perhaps it is time to move on. He could ask to return to Heaven, except that he made such a fuss about it the last time they asked, and incidentally he's also banished after that mess with the hellfire. Hmm. Stuck on Earth, then, since he wouldn't crawl into Hell (again) for anything. He could try another continent, Aziraphale supposes. Eurasia is all good and well for the first few millennia of eternity, but he's been itching to check out the Americas, and he distantly recalls Gabriel telling him that he really ought to check on the polar ice caps at some point.

"A world tour," he muses. "Yes, I rather like that idea. Travel broadens the mind, you know!"

Aziraphale glances around, and the smile slides off his face. There's no reply, no quip about how his mind could use the broadening, no one to hear or offer to come along or even just to be there. He's on his own. For a moment, it hurts, and then he pulls his shoulders back. Straightens his spine, pulls his vest into place.

"I don't need you," he tells the empty air. "No, I don't. So there."

A snap of his fingers and the suitcase is packed. Aziraphale lifts it and, with a final look around the bookshop, he's gone in a _pop!_

Crowley sleeps. Aziraphale wanders. While a snake dreams, an angel crosses the globe.

The North Pole is in a shocking state when Aziraphale gets there. He supposes he ought to have checked on it earlier, but free will must be preserved and that means preserving consequences of human activity. So he does not fix the ozone hole or rebuild the ice caps. Still, he figures it can't hurt the Plan (Great or Ineffable as it may be) if he saves just _one_ polar bear cub from habitat loss by extending an iceberg only a _little_ bit farther. It's a small miracle, after all. Nothing drastic.

And there's no one to see him do it, anyway.

It goes on in this way. Aziraphale traverses the planet, visiting various locales and sometimes performing unobserved acts of kindness. He's acquiring tastes for new foods and indulging in old favorites, yet he can't help but to feel rather distasteful about the whole thing. It's one year to the day since he left when he realizes, midway through the best sushi he's ever had, that he doesn't care about the food if he's eating it alone.

"Bugger all this for a lark," he mumbles, and after paying his bill Aziraphale returns to London with his heart in his throat.

Crowley's flat is dark when Aziraphale enters, but he doesn't dare invade this space with ethereal light. "Crowley?"

Silence. He couldn't have moved out, could he? He wouldn't have, surely. Aziraphale looks around. It still _feels_ like Crowley in here, still carries his particular energy signature that Aziraphale could recognize anywhere. The plants, when he peeks into their room, are still verdant and well, so the demon hasn't abandoned them. Which means he must be here somewhere.

"Crowley?" he calls again. Nothing stirs. Perhaps he should leave.

Deep in a snake's subconscious, the sound of his name echoes through him. It is not enough to wake him, but for the first time in twelve months, Crowley's tail twitches.

Aziraphale picks up on the movement. He crouches beside the chair. "Is that you?" He pauses. What other enormous snake would be coiled around Crowley's chair leg? He locks eyes with the snake, which does not move. "Oh, come on, don't ignore me. Please."

Snakes, you may be aware, do not have eyelids. Crowley is not even aware that Aziraphale is under the impression he is having a conversation. He is still asleep.

Suspicion grips Aziraphale. He stretches out a finger and gingerly pokes the nearest part of Crowley, which happens to be unfortunately close to the jaws he remembers too late are venomous.

It is instinct, not malice, that drives Crowley to lunge forward and snap his jaws shut. It is also instinct that saves Aziraphale from untimely discorporation, by jolting him backward and away from knife-sharp fangs.

Neither instinct nor angelic breeding, however, is responsible for the stream of panicked words that escapes Aziraphale as he lands hard and sits, shaken, several feet away from Crowley. _That_ is finally enough to rouse Crowley from his year-long nap.

A snake cannot blink, because of the aforementioned lack of eyelids, but as Crowley unfurls from under the chair he shakes his scaly head as if to clear the fog of sleep from his brain. Then he's shifted into his more familiar form and he offers Aziraphale a hand up.

"Sorry about that," he says, and clears his throat. "I-"

Aziraphale looks at the sunglasses opposite him and thinks there is more to this apology than this accident. "It's I who should apologize," he says, and means just the same.

Their hands are still clasped, though Aziraphale is on his feet.

Crowley cannot account for the angel's return. The last time they were together, Zira pushed him away; why would he come back? But the question will not form. Instead, he asks, "How long's it been?"

"A year. One. One year," stammers Aziraphale, who is acutely aware that Crowley is still holding onto his hand. He does not add, _One year exactly_, because that would mean reminding them both of what happened last year, and he doesn't know if either of them wants that reminder.

Crowley hears it anyway. But Zira's _here_. That's an apology in itself. It is a statement that seems to bring forth more questions than it answers. Why? What has Zira got to apologize for? Has he misunderstood something crucial, something essential, something just beyond his grasp? A final question presents itself: What really happened that day? "A year," he repeats, and lets on none of this. "Hmm. Bookshop's doing alright?"

Aziraphale looks shifty and pulls away. "Oh. I took a… a vacation of sorts. Tried out the travelling lifestyle for a bit."

"Travelling?" Crowley raises an eyebrow. "Where?"

A shrug. Half a step backward. "You know… Everywhere, really. Around the world, as it were. A little bit of everything."

"The world! And you-"

Aziraphale blinks. Gently, like he's trying not to spook a wounded animal, he says, "What?" There is something in Crowley's tone that he recognizes, unless he is fooling himself. Which is entirely possible, considering Crowley's reaction to the one and only time that Aziraphale tried to act on whatever he had thought was between them. It must be one-sided, after all. It's only natural that an angel should love more strongly than a demon. Only… Crowley is still looking at him like _that_, and-

"You came back _here_," says Crowley flippantly, and even behind sunglasses it is clear that he is rolling his eyes. "To this dump of a city. The wide world to choose from-any world, really-and you end up back in London. Typical, angel. Unbelievable, you are. That's what the whole 'ineffable' thing's referring to, actually, it's you lot and your… your propensity for inexplicably _stupid_ decisions-"

"You know why," says Aziraphale, suddenly emboldened by this new train of thought. He steps forward. Reckless. Heedless of the warnings his mind is shouting at him. His hand rises of its own accord and settles against Crowley's chest. "Surely, you must know."

Crowley doesn't dare breathe. Any movement could dislodge the hand that is making his heart skip so erratically. Hope is flooding his senses and making it impossible to think straight. "Tell me," he whispers.

Instead, Aziraphale's hand clutches at Crowley's shirt and pulls him closer. His other hand comes up to lift the dark glasses so he can see Crowley's expression in full, so he can make certain this time before bringing Crowley in. This time, neither of them pulls back.

_Oh_.

Crowley knows, now, that he was wrong. The familiar vertigo in his stomach could not be further from the sensation of falling. This is soaring, unbound by physicality, miles above the earth. Being with Zira is the closest he's come to feeling unFallen in millennia. It feels like forgiveness.

Aziraphale was wrong too: this is not like flying. This is falling freefall, tumbling, plummeting at terminal velocity toward this being who exerts his own gravity over him. Flying is a choice. This is inevitable.

After all, there may be a million things between them, but what is a million against an infinity of things in their favor? 

A/N: Title is from Queen's "Staying Power." PLEASE leave a comment if you enjoyed, I want to hear your thoughts!


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